Veteran rights leader weighs in

by Laurie Roberts - May. 8, 2010 12:00 AMThe Arizona Republic

Amid all the arguing and the protesting and the boycotting, one notable Arizona voice has been absent from the national shouting match on the state's new immigration law. I realized it this week when I saw a picture of the Rev. Al Sharpton, marching arm in arm with Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox.

Where was the Rev. Oscar Tillman?

Tillman, president of the Maricopa County NAACP, has at times been a voice in the wilderness on issues of unfair treatment in this community. For 50 years, he's spoken out on issues of civil rights.

But he didn't take to the streets this week with Sharpton, and he won't be joining Congressman Raul Grijalva's call for a boycott of Arizona. In fact, Tillman is critical of most of the major players in our ongoing firefight over immigration, from the pandering of Sen. John McCain to the silence of Bishop Thomas Olmsted to the amnesia of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. But he reserves his strongest words for Grijalva and Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon.

"In my personal opinion, Phil Gordon and Raul Grijalva are the major, major obstacles in winning this battle because they are creating, they are putting their foot in their mouth too quick and causing more problems than they are solving," he said.

"What has Phil solved in all his trips to Washington, D.C.? And what has Raul solved by calling for a boycott?"

For the record, Tillman opposes Senate Bill 1070, saying it could open the door to racial profiling and open police to criticism and worse. But the hysteria over the bill, he says, is overblown. Even President Barack Obama has gotten into the act, saying of our state, "Now suddenly if you don't have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you can be harassed."

"I think the president of the United States should have waited until he had at least a little information about it or at least looked at the bill," Tillman said. "The reason he probably hadn't is because of the person who ran her mouth so much when she was governor, about Washington needs to do this and that, and then she got the job to do it and did nothing."

Instead of calling for boycotts and bringing in celebrities, Tillman says opponents ought to be concentrating on the two places that could actually change the law - the courtroom and the ballot box. He says the local NAACP chapter plans to join a legal challenge and is working behind the scenes to support candidates who would spark a change in the state Legislature where the bill was born.

Tillman say he's taken heat for not attending Wednesday's march, but he's concentrating his efforts on things he believes will effect change.

"I didn't hear (at the march) anyone say, 'You know what? We have an election coming up. We need to send a message that we have voting power.' I didn't hear one person say that. If you have not showed your voting power, then who is going to listen to you?"

Tillman says a call to bring in "freedom riders" is premature and, in fact, that bringing in Sharpton was premature. First, he says, opponents should be working locally to keep the law from going into effect - something that no imported protesters, no celebrity and no boycott will accomplish.

"Until true leadership comes out of this, I think we all need to sit back and let the legal process work and work with those who are legally trying to stop this," he said.

Tillman had a lot of other things to say. Here are a few of them.

On McCain and the border: "I am disappointed to the max at people like Sen. McCain, who sat in office for 28 years and then he's going to turn around and point fingers at the president that has been there less than two years. What did he do for 28 years? He bounced with the wind."

On Olmsted: "Where is the leader of one of the largest religious organizations in this state? His people are the ones that are going to be 'racial profiled.' His people are the ones who are going to be sent back across the border. . . . When the leadership is not coming from the religious community, the true religious community, then others pick and choose their leaders."

On Sharpton: "How many of the people out there talking about the bill, to include Sharpton and others, have looked at it? I disagree with the bill, but at least I have the common sense to read it so at least I will be intelligent about the bill."

On Gov. Jan Brewer: "At least I get one thing about the bill and that is, from it I saw that we have a governor that isn't afraid to do what she feels she wants to do and I give Gov. Brewer credit for that, that she stands tall. She stood tall and nobody made her wince and back up on the sales tax and I think they realize now, if they'd gone along with her when she first came into office, we probably wouldn't be in the debt we are in now."

On Arizona: "We are getting an unfair reputation because we keep creating it. We have a mayor that just goes out bleeping to be beeping."

On boycotts and the state's Martin Luther King holiday: "They forgot one thing. There were many instances of trying to work with the state of Arizona to pass Martin Luther King before we hit the streets."